Thea 2: The Shattering Development Updates

Since we last checked, the developers behind Thea 2: The Shattering, a wild mashup of the strategy and RPG genres, have posted a few progress updates.

The first one talks about the demons in their world. With how prominent the Norse, Greek, and Egyptian mythologies are in the gaming media, it’s nice to see some love for the Slavic folklore. A few examples:

The leshy – perhaps the oldest of known beings, as old as the giants who sang the world into existence. The leshy is known throughout Thea, under many different names and forms, but every culture seems to tell tales of a forest spirit, powerful and primordial. In Slavya, the leshy has been known as an older man walking the forests, a bear or a deer. But in its natural form, the leshy is a tree-like creature that lives exclusively in woodlands and safeguards its borders. Some older specimens have become one with the forest and can no longer speak or be active in our mortal world, people often believe that ancient oaks are those very spirits and thus they hold them sacred. But many leshy remain mobile, vigilant and ever watchful of their wards. To say that the leshy is a good demon, would be a stretch however. They can indeed provide great wisdom and even aid to those they deem friendly, but if you happen to lite a fire or chop the wrong tree without permission, things can get very bad, fast. The leshy are known to command all other woodland demons and most animals, so an angry forest can be your worst enemy. The natural affinity of the tree-demons to the cosmic tree is perhaps the reason why many Slavyan cultures worship in the forests and will take great care before destroying any ancient woodlands. Naturally, the elves are known to be great friends with the leshy, although the hierarchy of such friendship remains unclear.

Finally, the vily. known both as forest guardians but also wind demonettes. These part bird, part female creatures of the skies are certainly wild and unpredictable, but they also serve an important purpose in protecting the skies and controlling the storms. The skylines protected by vily are likely to be safe from the cmock and other winged malice, which can prove a great advantage. If kept appeased, the vily can also help to control the weather, either casting away or calling upon the storms to come. The vily were never human, but their likeness to our kind has caused the creatures much curiosity towards us, especially towards males. It has been known for a vily to kidnap a lone, wandering fella and carry him off to their nest. Some such men returned unharmed, some were never found again, none remember what has transpired… While most vily will remain independent or in the service of the leshy, some are known to trade favours with human and unhuman settlements in exchange for their protection and good will. It is however unclear what they ask in return.

As evident from this mere sample of demon accounts, these creatures vary greatly in purpose, temperament and attitude to mankind. With our next account, we shall explore the distinction between the unliving and the demon kind in more detail. Stay safe, always carry a red ribbon on you, and beware of pretty ladies by the lake…

The second update deals with the more technical side of things and describes the game’s day/night cycles, with screenshots and a short in-engine video. An excerpt:

Those of you who have played Thea: The Awakening surely remember that one of the game’s features was a day/night cycle that affected visibility and difficulty. We’ve decided to keep this element in Thea 2: The Shattering as well. An opportunity to work on this bit appeared after Khash has added handling of specular maps into his terrain and water shaders this week. So to test how things work, I played a while with different light setups and thought it would be cool to put together a switchable animation with a set of lights that would show the day/night cycle.[…]

Other terrain elements also got an upgrade – water got an improved normal map, can now bounce off light and also blends with the shore much better. Also terrains can now use emissive maps, so I can add a nice glow to lava tiles on the volcanic island (yet to be done). And KIhash is improving terrain blending as I type this post. Of course there’s still much work needed – rivers are a bit buggy, fog of war is missing, etc. – but I do hope we’re going in the right direction.